True story – I first played in an “Alien” taple top game
before I ever watched the movie. And that was just about 4 years ago. We caught
“Aliens” on TV back in high school, but I’d not seen the first of the movies.
Coming out like it did in 1979, I would have been old enough to catch it at the
theater. And it probably would have honestly given me nightmares at the time.
But now? It’s one of my top 5 favorites.
That game of “Alien” got me hooked. Not only did I have to
have the game, but I also needed to watch ALL of the movies. The first is still
the best, although the second does give it a run for it’s money. After that you
can save yourself some time and just read about them on IMDB or Wikipedia. If
you do watch the next two, they aren’t bad. They’re just not necessarily good
either. And do not get me started on the prequels. Someone should have just
said no, but they were too busy looking at potential dollar signs. Seriously, the
characters in “Prometheus” are all to stupid to survive, as I’m sure anyone
with even a basic background in a lab or science classes would back up.
But I digress. Monday night’s movie was “Alien” from 1979. The
basic starting premis is that the crew is in cybersleep on their way back from
a run when a distress signal causes the computer, MU-TH-ER, wakes them. As part
of their contract with Weyland-Yutani, the big corporation behind their recent
run, they need to answer the distress call, even if it means they won’t make it
back as early as they were going to. (That would have netted them a bonus.)
Of course, as most of you are reading this, it’s all a setup
and what they instead wind up bringing onto their ship is the infamous xenomorph.
I’m not going to give away anymore of the plot. Most of you reading this have
probably already watched it. And if you haven’t, I don’t want to spoil
anything. (And if you haven’t watched it, you really, really should.)
“Alien” is considered one of the classics for a reason. As
has been said before, Ridley Scott essentially created a haunted house
situation, only with a murderous alien instead of an actually ghost or poltergeist.
And then, he put it in space, where they characters were well and truly
trapped. It’s brilliant. And he then kept the pacing and the tension just where
it needed to be. (“The Thing”, also on my schedule for this week, also keeps
the pacing just right.)
The other brilliant move Scott made with this movie was to
fight for the casting of Sigourney Weaver as the determined Warrant Office
Ripley. The role wasn’t assigned a gender in the script but the producers
wanted a man in the role. Scott thougth a woman would have more impact (he was right)
and that Weaver had just the right look and mannerisms for the role. (He was
right again.) This was a movie that helped make her career in film.
When it comes to a gaming connection with this one, it’s
easy. You need to play the RPG. Having played the game before watching the movie,
it was fun to sit there and figure out where some of the game settings and
mechanics were influenced by the movie. And I just knew there had to be an
andriod in there somewhere, but who was it?
If you’re not lucky enough to have the game, or know someone
who does, then take the setting and work it into whatever game you are
currently playing. It doesn’t have to even be in space. Just place the session
somewhere truly isolated and remote, then toss some murderous entity into the
mix. It’ll be fun!
If you want to follow along with my choices, you can check
out my calendar in this post. There have been a few changes as I go along, but
it’s mostly intact. And if you want to check out the suggested themes for each
day, they are complments of Pun, over at Halls of Nephilim.
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